Headstand Media

Headstand Media is excited to announce the launch of a brand new online community website for The Blacksmith Project, a recording studio and Christian musician collective based in Bull Valley, Illinois. The site was built around emerging Web 2.0 strategies, and offers in-depth content, photos, music sampling and purchasing, blogs and social media integration for its artists.

Project Strategy

Headstand Media, a Chicago web design company, met with the founders of The Blacksmith Project soon after the construction of the aforementioned recording studio, and provided a comprehensive web strategy that focused on:

• Logo design, branding, and messaging
• Educating the client in regard to Web 2.0 best practices and social media
• How to tell a captivating story and engage the culture
• Developing a dynamic, compelling website

The Blacksmith Project needed a site that was both visually exciting and able to handle multiple user accounts. Since there were a handful of artists involved, it was important that each artist had their own unique area of the site, where they could develop their own content and sell their music. Equally of importance was the building of the site with a technology that would be versatile and scalable for future expansion and additional features.

Project Technology and Integration

Theblacksmithproject.com was built in a content management system called WordPress, the world’s largest blogging and content management platform, using open source technology. For this particular project we used WordPress MU, to facilitate multiple users and accounts. We designed the custom theme that controls the way the site looks and feels, using industry standard best practices in HTML, PHP, SEO, Javascript, and CSS web coding. The site is an excellent example of our balanced approach of creativity + technology—a strategy we consistently employ as we’re solving business problems for our customers.

More About The Blacksmith Project

The Blacksmith Project was founded in 2007 by Duncan Mathieson and Mark Filippi, both longtime musicians with a passion to both teach and empower new artists in their pursuit of recording, performing, songwriting, and promoting themselves and their own original music. The founders met around the time that Duncan was considering retirement from a business career and Mark was an interim worship pastor at Moraine Valley Church.

Since its inception and the completion of the recording studio in Bull Valley, Illinois, The Blacksmith Project has amassed a handful of talented musicians and hosted benefit concerts in their area. One of their big goals is to raise awareness and support for local ministries and meaningful causes in order to impact their local community. Their next free concert will be on February 6th at the Raue Center for the Arts in Crystal Lake, Illinois and will begin at 7:00pm. The concert will benefit the Crystal Lake Food Pantry.

For more information on The Blacksmith Project, their artists, and their events, please visit them at www.theblacksmithproject.com!

Headstand Media is pleased to announce the launch of a new website for the Morey Corporation located in Woodridge, IL. This new site was built around emerging Web 2.0 strategies, and offers in-depth content, videos, and blogs for the electronic manufacturing industry.

Project Strategy

Headstand Media, a Chicago web design company, provided a comprehensive online web strategy that focused on developing a dynamic, compelling website for the client. Our friends at Morey needed a site that was conversational, transparent, and easy to navigate, and highlighted the key strength of their business: service.

While the Morey Corporation has for decades specialized in electronic manufacturing over a wide range of platforms and contexts, this new web strategy paid special attention to their personality and relational qualities. Developing a website that both highlighted Morey’s professional and technical expertise, as well as featured their key customer service strengths, was important to the success of the project.

Entering this project, Morey had an existing site and content that where static and invisible to the web at large. The new web architecture provided by Headstand Media gives Morey an improved technical foundation, where all content is both well structured, and search engine friendly.

Integral to the strategy of the new Morey Corporation website are several new videos, which feature the Morey leadership team. These were conceived and produced by Headstand Media from start to finish, and included filming on location in Woodridge, Illinois. These non-corporate-feeling videos promote Morey’s culture of approachability, integrity, and excellence, and divulge lots of great information about the company in a creative way.

Project Technology and Integration

Moreycorp.com was built in a content management system called WordPress, the world’s largest blogging and content management platform, using open source technology. We designed the custom theme that controls the way the site looks and feels, using industry standard best practices in HTML (PHP), SEO, Javascript, Flash and CSS web coding. The site is an excellent example of Headstand Media’s balanced approach of creativity + technology—a strategy we consistently employ as we’re solving business problems for our customers.

More About Morey Corporation

The Morey Corporation is known for its rich history of providing the highest quality electronics to industry leaders. Their innovative approaches to manufacturing, prototyping, problem solving, product design and customer service makes them an incredibly versatile partner to a range of different clients. Nestled just east of I-355 in Woodridge, Illinois, Morey’s entire operation can be found under one roof. On site is also a brand new Innovation Center, where Morey employs some of the top engineers and thinkers in the industry around expanding product lines, developing new strategies, and solving complex problems for customers.

Dedicated to quality and service since the Morey Corporation’s 1934 foundation in the basement of William Morey, the people at the Morey Corporation are some of the finest individuals we’ve had the opportunity to work with.

For more information about the Morey Corporation, be sure to visit their site today!

Headstand Media is pleased to announce the launch of a new website for Scholle Packaging. This new site was built around emerging Web 2.0 strategies, and offers in-depth content, videos, and blogs from the flexible packaging industry.

Project Strategy

Headstand Media, a Chicago web design company, provided a comprehensive online web strategy that focused on developing compelling content, dynamic imagery, and engaging videos—all with a strong Search Engine Optimization (SEO) plan. Our friends at Scholle needed a site that was conversational, transparent, and easy to navigate, as well as a versatile tool to show why Scholle is the leader in flexible packaging solutions.

We paid special attention during the creation of Scholle’s various Bag-in-Box Application pages (such as wine packaging, juice packaging or dairy packaging): each application page pulls together the benefits of going with bag-in-box, while listing the key flexible bags, films and fitments.

Entering this project, Scholle had what we consider to be “above average” search engine optimization practices in place. The new web architecture provided by Headstand Media gives Scholle an improved technical foundation, where all content is both well structured, and search engine friendly. In addition to this foundation, Headstand Media is monitoring targeted attempts at increasing Scholle’s rankings on core keywords related to their business focus.

Project Technology and Integration

Scholle.com was built in a content management system called WordPress, the world’s largest blogging and content management platform, using open source technology. We designed the custom theme that controls the way the site looks and feels, using industry standard best practices in HTML, SEO, Javascript, Flash and CSS web coding. The site is an excellent example of Headstand Media’s balanced approach of creativity + technology—a strategy we consistently employ as we’re solving business problems for our customers.

More About Scholle Packaging

Scholle Packaging, the pioneer of Bag-in-Box™, is a world leader in bag-in-box packaging for the food, beverage, and industrial markets. With manufacturing locations on 5 continents and products that are sold in over 60 countries, they are committed to providing locally manufactured products with unprecedented innovation, quality, and customer service.

Scholle offers a broad range of packaging solutions and expertise dedicated to meeting customers’ needs. The breadth of their bag-in-box product offering includes flexible films, filling equipment, bags, fitments and caps. With significant resources deployed in areas such as R&D and innovation, Scholle is on the forefront of bringing flexible packaging technology and trends to life.

For more information about Scholle Packaging, visit their site today!

Chicago web design company Headstand Media is pleased to announce the launch of a new website for HBN Brand Design. The new site coincides with HBN’s own re-branding and it targets those in the industry who are looking for an innovative, reliable design firm to fulfill their graphic and marketing communication needs.

Project Strategy

Headstand Media provided a comprehensive online web strategy that has made HBN Brand Design the online leader amongst its competitors. HBN desired that we help them contemporize and update their web image and presence. We did this visually by moving away from a corporate look and more towards a contemporary, young and professional feel.

Special attention was taken when building hbnbranddesign.com to create a site that was designed with best SEO practices so HBN can compete on important keywords in their industry. This new website helps HBN tell their story, share their personality, and shows off the excellent creative and strategic services they can offer their clients.

Project Technology and Integration

For the more technically inclined, the site was built in a content management system called WordPress, the world’s largest blogging platform, using open source technology. Headstand Media created the custom theme that controls the way the site looks and feels, using industry standard best practices in HTML, SEO, Javascript, Flash and CSS web coding. Headstand Media brings a balanced approach of creativity+technology to solving business problems for all our customers.

What HBN Has to Say

“THANK YOU Headstand team, for all your consulting, practical advice and hard work in designing our new web site.

We believe the site is easy to use, clearly reflects the business we’re in, the services we offer, and tells our brand story in a fresh new way. The site also does a great job of addressing client needs and showcasing our expertise & creative designs. The site is so rich with visual content, yet has a simple look. We are very pleased.

We are also confident that the latest SEO strategies and technologies used will result in increased traffic and thereby additional business opportunities for HBN. A great selling tool. Thanks for going the extra mile in meeting our deadlines. ”

Dwight Nelson – President of HBN Brand Design

More About HBN Brand Design

HBN is a Chicago package design firm with over 35 years of expertise that is dedicated to telling unique stories through Brand Identity Development, New Product Introductions, Brand Repositionings, Package Redesigns and Integrated Marketing Communications in the B2C arena.

They are experts at visually reflecting a brand’s essence and getting the right messages to the target audience, resulting in great designs that sell products, emotionally connect to the consumer, build brand awareness and increase market share. Get to know the HBN Brand Design team.

Home Page

Richards Patent Law went live with a new website designed by Headstand Media today. Headstand Media designed the site and set it up with a custom theme in WordPress. The reason we did this is because Patrick Richards is no ordinary patent attorney. He actually studies the way the Internet works, and wanted to have a website that was optimized to perform better in the search engines.You see, Patrick thinks that he can actually grow his business by targeting specific keywords and phrases with his website so that his most likely customers will find him more easily in a web search engine! Now that’s one smart attorney!

Patrick found out about Headstand Media through a friend who we had also designed a website for. He heard that we know about that whole search engine optimization thing. After talking with him, understanding his needs as a new business, we put together a proposal. I think he signed the acceptance page the same day! That’s not what I expected from an attorney… like I said, he’s not typical!

So, we built a new Richards Patent Law site using our favorite content management system, and added some features and tools designed to really make a big difference for his business. We also taught Patrick how to use the tool, and how to write and develop more content for his site that will be relevant to where he wants to go with his profession and business.

We’ll certainly be interested and watching his site to see how that goes. Welcome aboard Patrick!

CTI Advertising Interface designed by Headstand Media

In February 2008, Headstand Media welcomed Christianity Today International as a new Chicago area customer based upon the strong relationship Randal Birkey had developed by working with them in the past. Later in 2008 we began a project to help CTI Advertising to rebrand and reorganize itself with a new web presence that reflected an updated approach to advertising that addresses the marketplace it serves in a more intuitive and informative manner.

The result of this effort went live yesterday at a new domain of http://ctiadvertising.com.

The new CTI Advertising site:

• Makes it easier for prospective advertisers to find the information they need in order to advertise with CTI
• Reorganizes and redesigns the look and feel of CTI Advertising to give the user a much richer and interactive online experience. The site is easier to navigate and find information. They can upload files to CTI through this website interface.
• Leverages the online experience to build or enhance the relationship with prospective or existing CTI Advertising customers
• Harnesses the power of web 2.0 features to deliver information more effectively, and keep the site content up-to-date more efficiently

The home page visually informs the visitor that CTI can connect them with these key Christian audiences:

• Pastors and Church Leaders
• Active and Involved Christians
• Christian Thought Leaders
• Church Administrators
• Influential Decision Makers

This approach of delivering “audiences” to prospective advertisers instead of just “selling ads in publications” is a necessary and philosophical change in today’s world where technology is radically changing the face of media and communications. Headstand Media is proud to be associated with CTI in this endeavor and believes that this new approach is solid and deserves success.

For the more technically inclined, the site was built in a content management system called WordPress, the world’s largest blogging platform, using open source technology. Headstand Media created the custom theme that controls the way the site looks and feels, using industry standard best practices in HTML, Javascript, Flash and CSS web coding. In this way, Headstand Media brings a balanced approach of creativity+technology to solving business problems for our customers.

Thiemeworks.com

I met Richard Thieme many years ago during the 1980’s at an Association for Multimedia Communications event in Chicago. He was/is a friend of Harvey Tillis, our illustrious AMC President, who had invited Richard to come and speak to us. I don’t remember exactly what he spoke on, but I do remember that he was engaging and a very, very interesting person. We’ve kept in touch in the years ever since. Richard has continued his thinking, writing and speaking.

Some years ago when I was engaged in web design as BIRKEY.COM, I helped Richard keep his website up to date, developed new features for him, and even introduced him to blogging in the early days using TypePad.

Well, now that I am doing this new Headstand Media thing, Richard was curious about what that all meant. We’ve talked more about blogging, social media, viral marketing and other trends in the Internet. I suggested that his site really needed a major overhaul to be able to keep up with all that is happening. He sort of resisted for awhile, and then at some point a light bulb went off, and he “got it.” We’ve been working together to convert his site to WordPress ever since.

Yesterday, we are pleased to announce, Thiemeworks went live as a WordPress site! Congratulations, Richard!

- Posted by: Randal Birkey

As many of you know from previous posts, Here at Headstand Media, we have been building and experimenting with the WordPress blog engine and content management system (CMS) since 2007. We’re more and more impressed with this technology, its innovation and flexibility and as time goes on.

For the curious historians: WordPress began in 2003 as a simple open source blogging tool and has grown to a worldwide community of hundreds of thousands of sites. On June 10th, 2009, WordPress launched version 2.8 (Baker), expanding and honing the platform yet again. WordPress 2.8 has some great new features that include:

• New drag-and-drop widgets admin interface and new widgets API
• Syntax highlighting and function lookup built into plugin and theme editors
• Browse the theme directory and install themes from the admin
• Allow the dashboard widgets to be arranged in up to four columns
• Allow configuring the number of items to show on management pages with an option in Screen Options
• Support timezones and automatic daylight savings time adjustment
• Support IIS 7.0 URL Rewrite Module
• Faster loading of admin pages via script compression and concatenation

We are very impressed and excited about this new release and are using it on many client projects!

NAATBatt Home Page - http://naatbatt.org

We’re happy to announce the launch of a new website for NAATBatt (the National Alliance for Advanced Transportation Batteries), which is a remarkable co-op of more than 50 companies that have joined together to “…establish the United States as the world-class manufacturing technology leader in lithium-ion battery cells for transportation applications.” Today’s reality is that American automotive and defense contractors are relying on foreign suppliers – increasingly concentrated in Asia – for lithium ion battery cells.

NAATBatt required a new brand identity and logo, plus a clean, slick website where it could convey important information, explain its overall mission and business strategy, and highlight its growing league of members. We designed and implemented a new custom WordPress site, rich in content and organized in structure. It was exciting to work with such a promising organization, considering the scope of their pursuits.

Hardin County, in nearby Kentucky, has been chosen by the consortium as the site for a newly-proposed domestic battery manufacturing and headquarters facility, a potential investment upwards of $600 million. The facility would signify a move to regain the lead in lithium ion battery technology and development, and would provide a whopping 2,000 new jobs for the county. NAATBatt hopes to put a strong foot toward the clean cars of the future and has already applied to the US Department of Energy to secure federal funding.

We’re happy to be involved in a project such as this, and are proud to have created a new platform that will allow NAATBatt to further project their mission, gain momentum, maintain contact with members and supporters, and move closer towards a future in which American technological leadership is restored in such a critical industry.

Headstand Media has been using and experimenting with the WordPress blog engine and content management system (CMS) since 2007. The more we use it, the more we like it. In fact, tonight (July 31, 2008) we are hosting a Nightstand event where we will be presenting an overview on how to set up a WordPress site.

WordPress began in 2003 as a simple open source blogging tool and has grown to hundreds of thousands of sites with a worldwide community.

WordPress recently released version 2.7 (Coltrane) which has some nice new features including:

• A much improved new Dashboard and Admin area interface using drag and drop features and customization (Ajax)
• Turbo-charging performance through Google Gears
• Faster all around blog performance
• Sticky posts
• Comment threading
• Paging
• Installation and upgrade of plug-ins from within the application admin area

We are very impressed and excited about this new release!